


Reach Out and Burn

by ProngsfootxJily



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Call me by your name, Canon compliment, Elio/Oliver - Freeform, First Time, M/M, Nostalgia, Oliver's POV, Oliver's return, Peach scene, Porn With Plot, Post-Canon, Second Time, Sexual Content, True Love, You’ll kill me if you stop, book canon, soul mates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-10 01:36:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13494074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProngsfootxJily/pseuds/ProngsfootxJily
Summary: What if “call me by your name and I’ll call you by mine” had the same meaning to Oliver as “you’ll kill me if you stop” had to Elio?The night before their midnight meeting Oliver comes to understand the depth of his feelings towards Elio by means of a dream which also tells him just how far he's willing to go if it means Elio will go with him.~Basically an excuse to snapshot key scenes and explore how Oliver was feeling towards the end of his stay in B.Chapter two explores Oliver's return to B and how he copes being within touching distance of Elio after so long.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Book!Canon compliment with small details from the film slipped in. Fic switches to present tense 1/5 of the way in.

"Kill me if I stop."

Elio had called out to me as we cycled speedily down the hilly terrain of his hometown.

_Kill me if I stop..._

The words were carried on the wind, spoken with such exuberant happiness it was as if he was as carefree as the birds flying in the open sky above. However, there was something hidden in his tone - something I'd later come to understand but as of then was lost on me - that further ignited the flame I'd failed to extinguish. That small, dull flame that sparked the day I met him. The same one that I'd tried to conceal behind cold glances and my infamous "Later!" in hopes of keeping the light contained in the deepest, most shadowed corner of my mind. Yet it was relentless, burning its way through my entire being and I didn't know how long I'd last before it consumed me, forcing me to spread the fire, knowing full well he's the most flammable, most desirable cartridge of oxygen and that with a moments notice he would willingly reach out and burn with me.

We'd barely spoken since that afternoon we basked in the sun and gave in to each other, yet that night I dreamt of him. We were riding our bikes faster than we had that day, pedalling right off the edge of a rocky cliff; neither of us at all afraid. We let the momentum we'd gathered propel us, we pushed ourselves off our bikes and although we had no way to fight against it, fully surrendered ourselves to the force of gravity that pulled us down, down, down into the ocean below. Our bikes forgotten, we hit the water with what sounded like a deafening collision, our fragile bodies slamming into the swell, however, we resurfaced, gasping for air, liberated, invigorated, beaming at each other. The waves roared around us, ironically it gently pushed us closer. We tread the glistening water, laughter in the air and in our eyes and I wasn't able to help myself I was completely drawn to him. I couldn't blame it on the tide, because I had the same torrent running through my veins. I pulled him into me, he wrapped his legs around my hips and I kissed him, because I did not let myself - maybe even could not - think of a reason not to. His lips were salty but when I had kissed into his warm mouth he tasted of Elio, a taste I'd longed for since the moment it hit my tongue and one I was sure would haunt me whenever my lips touched someone else's. He pulled away from me and whispered something that I could not quite hear over the breaking waves, but the ocean managed to whisper some of it back to me.

"Call me..."

I stared at him.

"Call me by your name and I'll call you by mine," Elio said again, clearer, louder, as if injecting the words into my very skin where they settled, and I knew in that exact instant that he had given me something; words I would be forced to carry with me no matter how heavy they would become. I doubt that I'd be rid of them even when my skin rots from my bones and my skeleton bears no resemblance to the man Elio had once touched.

All of a sudden the dream evaporated and I was startled awake by the wind slamming against the unlocked balcony doors, making them almost unhinge and swing open.

 _He's not here, Oliver. He's with Marzia, maybe even inside Marzia._ I said to myself as if by acknowledging the redundancy of the unlocked doors I could lessen the severity -and eradicate the implications- of what the invitation truly meant, what it said about me; an implicit action speaking words I was not willing to say out loud. _Visit me Elio. We do not have to speak and we do not have to die and we do not have to touch, but please know by being with me that I too want what you want. So wait for me and I might surprise you by leaving more than my doors unlocked._

I crawled drowsily out of bed to bolt them shut properly but stopped in the middle of the room. I selfishly, maybe even childishly, hoped when he finally stumbled home that he would hear my doors slamming. Let him hear. Let him wonder if I'd left them unlocked for him. Let him wonder if the gesture was a sign; that I was speaking and he only had to listen.

Afraid of my own thoughts I returned to my bed -Elio's bed- and closed my eyes, forcing my mind to reflect upon my nearly completed manuscript.  
I dosed for the remainder of the night, half listening, half waiting for him to return.

He did not.

He was still out by the time I left for my early morning jog. I refrained from indulging in jealously. This was a good thing. Mazia was good for him. Yet I couldn't help but wonder if Elio was made to choose if he'd pick me over her. _What would he do, what would he say?_ He was often just as hard to read as he was easy to see through. A walking contradiction of complexities. On one hand a wise young man who could match me in almost every way and on the other a naive boy who thought he was in control of a game without so much as glancing at the rules. However, maybe I was the naive one. Maybe it was I that, even after meticulously reading the rules, should have discarded them and opened my eyes to see what was right in front of me; because the effortless way he moved me was the furthest thing from sinful. He touched me without so much as laying a finger on my body and the more I tried to push him from my mind that morning the more he pushed back. Taunting me, tempting me, testing me.

His smooth voice breathed sharp words into me while I jogged. _You really thought you could ignore me, Oliver... Elio? You say you know yourself so why are you denying yourself what we both know you want. I want you, too. What's wrong with a little fun? It'll be good. I'll feel good. Let us be good together._

So when I had returned from my jog to find a piece of folded lined paper slipped under my door with a plea to end the silence I smirked, he must have thought of me -at least fleetingly- whist he was with Marzia. I hastily wrote a reply, not allowing myself time to overthink the repercussions; where was the harm in opening the unlocked doors? He could walk out of them whenever he pleased.

****

Now it's past midnight and I'm between his thighs waves of pleasure rolling through me while he repeats:

"You'll kill me if you stop."  
You'll kill me if you stop.  
_You'll kill me if you stop..._

There it is again, the same tone, almost the same words, this time pleading for me to continue burying myself in him: to give in, to let go, to never stop touching him for the fear he will no longer know how to survive. The words seem to hold such significance for him, the way he pants them, moans them, whimpers them like a mantra for my ears only. They mean something to him, something sacred and private. I can see it in the way he looks at me, his expression begging me to understand their meaning.

"You'll kill me if you stop."

Then it washes over me, like the ocean in my dream, and I'm so completely submerged in all things _Elio_ that I whisper: "Call me by your name and I'll call you by mine."

He doesn't fathom the origin of my words but the way we study each other's faces is entirely enough understanding. So when he whispers, "Elio," my body resurfaces: liberated and renewed.

Breathing heavily I whisper, "Oliver," and in this moment we release ourselves. We have unshackled our bodies from something we thought permanently adhered us to the ground. We transcend this bed, this room, maybe even this world and travel somewhere so far removed from what we know that it would almost be impossible to ever fully attach ourselves back to the ground.

The doubt that had flickered across his face earlier has completely disappeared, and the guilt that had pressed on my chest for continuing to take him, slips away as we become the closest thing to one being we would ever be able to reach.  
He gasps, a mixture of pain and pleasure as my name falls from his lips followed by his own. I attach my lips to his neck kissing him, licking his skin and I swear I can taste the salt of the ocean on him. I moan quietly and he shifts under me, spreading himself wider for me. Letting me take him, so I kiss back up to his mouth and start to sloppily jerk him off as I come undone inside him, with the tight grip of his fingers tugging my hair he chases his orgasm finding it easily and spurting come out over both our chests.

Neither of us seem to be done with each other and it barely takes twenty minutes of soft kissing and caresses to have us aching for each other again. I tell him I want to come on him, he seems somewhat dubious yet compliment and undoubtedly aroused by my words. He helps me, gently fondling my balls as I kneel between his legs. He stares at me with such intensity, such wonder, as I peak in front of him, for him. The sight of him, mouth parted, committing the sight of me to his memory makes it hard to think of anything besides the intensity of my climax as I coat him in my come, a further hit of arousal slipping through my body at the sight.

 _Mine_. At least for tonight, at least until he pushes me away or at least until I... I don't finish the thought.

*

He wakes from his accidental slumber with a start, as if his conscious has kicked in and the limbo we had created after our bodies parted breaks open. I'm still holding him because I'm not ready to let go, knowing distance will create a tension that can only be addressed with words and a lack of them could alter everything. He looks at me, then away from me, closing himself off - the latter it is then. Maybe I _had_ killed him when I stopped. Killed a part of him: his innocence, his curiosity, his lustful desire for my body. He'd got what he thought he wanted and as it turns out he does not want it again. I let him slip out of my arms.

"You're not happy," I keep my tone even and quiet.

I suppose it's more of an observation than a leading question and Elio interprets the former, shrugging in response. As I look at him perched on the edge of the bed I can see the way his mind has betrayed him, tormenting him with what must be a nauseating array of conflicting and illogical thoughts. I'm currently on the outside, like when you watch a friend sob over the death of someone you never met; your heart aches for them but you can't seem to comfort them, because they are not what you need, they need someone who understands the loss.

"You're feeling sick about it, aren't you? I knew we shouldn't have, I knew it. We should have talked," I do not intend to infer that I regret what happened, but instead hope to open a dialogue that I should have been more insistent upon us having prior to diving into each other. But the proximity of the thing you desire almost always has ways of weakening even the most solid of resolves.

"Maybe..." The word slices through my chest and even he seems to be aware of his harshness. _Maybe_... maybe we should have spoken, maybe we shouldn't have, Maybe if we had spoken we would have ended up here regardless. Maybe he wishes we hadn't done either, that he hadn't come into my room at all...

"Did you hate it?" Was my way of asking do you hate me. _How deep does your regret go, Elio? does it expand past your own mind, body and soul to the point it tarnishes me._ He shrugs again.

"You can go to sleep, if you want," I soften my selfish thoughts with compassion and he lays down, wrapping his arms around me. I hold him loosely and don't take my eyes off him in fear I'll miss a sign from him.

"You're staring at me," his tone is split between lighthearted, observational, embarrassed and comforted and I do not know which he intended me to hear so I remain silent and continue to hold him until he pulls away and says we should go swimming.

*

 _What's done is done, now we have to move on._ I'm sure I can convince myself what we felt was nothing more than the height of sexual pleasure and not at all a profound, life altering experience. Surely if he felt as strongly as I had he wouldn't be this far removed. 

My attempt at denial barely lasts a couple of hours. Maybe he just can't comprehend the intensity of the intimacy we shared. The turmoil radiating from him is palpable and thoroughly unnerving. I refrain from entertaining thoughts of shame and regret because he seems to be feeling my share as well as his own. So as we sit on the rock by the ocean, dripping wet from our swim, talking as if we're close friends, brothers even, an intimacy we hadn't quite reached in our prior conversations. We're completely raw and honest, we have nothing left to hide from each other now.

I attempt to speak, to ask him if he's okay and why, just as I was about to enter him, he wanted to stop me. I hoped I could subtly ease his worries and guide him back to reality, maybe even guide him back to me, but he turns away from me again. I'm washed with the overwhelming and uncharacteristic need to chase him, to remind him of what we felt when he whispered his own name and how in that moment he claimed me, telling me we are one, whilst simultaneously asking: may we never be two again.

"Are you going to hold last night against me?" I ask, another attempt to know what feelings he's harbouring against me.

"No..." I can't help but question his honesty and the word ties itself around my ankles. He tells me he doesn't think he'll be able to ride his bike today and we both know why.

As we make our way back to the house his "no" weighs me down. The silence is awkwardly comfortable yet I have the excessive need to reopen Elio's heart, to take him back to who he was the day he told me his feelings towards me are far from platonic. I want to breathe his courage back into his lungs and slip his bravery back under his skin.

"Take your trunks off," I say stepping into his room. He follows my request, an unreadable expression on his face. "Sit down," I kneel in front of him and immediately take him in my mouth. He lets out a tiny, calming sigh, his hand absentmindedly slipping into my hair as I suck on his rapidly hardening cock. I pull back before he becomes fully erect. I stand throwing a casual: "We'll save it for later," his way before sauntering out of his room.

*

Later, however, took a very peculiar turn. After I dropped not-so-subtle hints that I still want him: like wearing his swimsuit to breakfast, playing footsies under the table and, of course, telling him directly to his face that I was glad we slept together and that I would kiss and hold him if I could. That afternoon when I pulled back his sheet to reveal his near-naked, divinely sculpted, body and took him in my mouth again he no longer tasted of the ocean - like he had that morning - but like Elio, with a sweet, recognisable aftertaste.

As we speak about the peach oozing with his come I can't help but wish that it was I he'd split open and came inside.

I swirl the taste around my mouth savouring it as he reassures me I can spit it out, that he wouldn't be offended... He doesn't realise how much I enjoy tasting the peak of his sexual fantasies, that I wished he had asked me to surrender my body and be as acquiescent as the peach I'm slowly chewing. Suddenly he's crying into my shoulder. For a brief moment I think he may feel ashamed. _Say something, Oliver, be brave and speak; the truth is safe with him._

"Whatever happens between us, Elio, I just want you to know. Don't ever say you didn't know."

Then I realise he's not crying from embarrassment but from an array of indescribable emotions. _What's going on in his head?_ I wonder, it's as if he's giving in, no longer fighting against himself. And now he knows what I was too shy, too cowardly to admit to myself. Funny how easily and naturally the truth comes out when you're presented with the exact situation your conscious is frightened of.

"Kiss me now before it's totally gone," his voice is even and certain, his hesitancy forgotten. Then it happens, well before I can think to stop it: the fire pours out of me like molten lava and I can almost feel the way his body ignites. _Fuck it, fuck it all._ In my heart of hearts I know I'm never going to have this again, that Elio had in fact stolen my heart right out of my chest and so help me God I don't have a single desire to take it back. So it truly would have been an injustice, maybe even a crime, to burn without him, to keep this to myself when a single touch could ensure we burn so brightly, so ferociously we'll keep each other warm for decades. I swallow His Peach and kiss him hungrily, conveying that I want more - that the fruit wasn't enough. He kisses me with such passionate force I can't quite believe he almost didn't want this to continue. He pulls me onto him and he can feel just how hard I am.

"Sick and twisted," he mumbles between kisses. I kiss down his neck, pushing off his tank top I kiss down his body until I take him in my mouth again. Not having any plans to stop this time I leisurely suck him off, licking and kissing his hard cock until there is no trace of sweet nectar left and it's just him. "Is this alright?" I ask. I've never had someone's cock in my mouth before and I'm relying only on my experience of receiving such pleasure to guide my understanding. Elio moans in response, although it's more of a sigh, and lays back, his fingers threading into my hair, tugging slightly, it sends a shot of pleasure straight to my core. I'm like a young kid who can't handle their alcohol, and he's the tempting bottle of vodka, continuously calling my name. I know I'm drunk but can't seem to stop consuming him. I don't want to stop, not until the bottle is empty, maybe not even then.

Elio squirms beneath me, his hips grinding, bucking shallowly to meet my deep movements. "Oliver," he moans and warns simultaneously, however, half my name gets caught in his throat and turns into more of a moan. He's right on the edge and I hum into him to assure him I still have no desire to stop. The vibration causes a shiver to run through him and the next moment his warm come is flowing down my throat. I continue to bob my head and suck at him while trying to swallow as much of him as I can, some dribbles back out, running down his cock, pooling in the curves of his pelvis. I resolve to licking him clean and coming up with him all around my mouth.

"Still want to kiss me?" My cocky attitude is outmatched when he indeed leans forward and kisses me, just a light peck on the lips before pushing me down and returning the favour. He does not ask me what I like, he does not ask for guidance or validation, he just begins. His inexperienced mouth takes what it can and he relies on his hand, his instincts and his assumptions to do the rest. He looks up at me through his lashes keeping eye contact, his mouth slipping down most of my cock.

"I won't last if you keep looking at me like that," I whisper and he slowly looks down - which really didn't help either because he basically just told me he doesn't want me to finish. He may not be begging for validation but I sure as hell won't pass up the opportunity to compliment him. "Just like that," I moan as he finds a beautifully tight rhythm. His free hand slides up and down my chest, his fingers running over my nipple. "Elio," I grunt. I pause then mutter, "Oliver..." tentatively. His eyes flutter up to meet mine as he moans around me, picking up the pace, I whisper my name again, and it's like I've managed to shift something in him to the point he knows exactly what he is doing, taking even more of me.

We lay together for a while after, just talking, until he slowly starts to dose off, I kiss his cheek in farewell and slip silently out of his covers.

*

That night he finds me on my rock, he skips joyously towards me, radiating with our fire. My heart slams against my ribs at the sight of his bright smile - _light of my life_. He sits beside me and kisses my neck, it sends a shiver down my spine. What an innocent kiss, not at all amorous or suggestive; completely heartfelt and genuine. Before long his hand is in my pants and my arm around his shoulders. Soon we're back in my room and sooner still I'm on my back and his hands and mouth are all over me. He's sucking barely there marks into my neck when I whisper.

"Fuck me, Oliver," just like he had that same morning in the post office.

"You'd let me?" He asks kissing up my neck.

"I want you to," I correct and he slowly starts to pull back, a nervous smile on his lips.

"I want to, too."

"I know."

We take the necessary precautions and before long he's pushing his way into me, my willing body parting like His Peach. He's grunting quietly, his limbs twitching, his arms which he uses to support himself shake slightly as the feeling travels through his entire body. He's kissing me with such longing a few words he'd once said to me start to echo in my mind.

_"I worship you, Oliver."_

I can feel it in the way he touches me, the way he thrusts carefully and unabashedly into me. Trying so desperately to hold on, to last, to not stop in fear it will kill him, kill me even.

"I worship you, too, Elio. I worship everything about you," I'm not sure if I actually say the words but I don't think he would question them if I had. 

"This is..." he trails off, the words escaping him as his eyes roll back slightly before he closes them. I kiss his face, there really aren't even words to describe this.

"I know," I kiss him again and again.

I wonder what he's thinking about to keep himself on the verge of orgasm, because he's there, I can feel it. I know what Elio looks like when he's about to come and that is something I'm never going to be able to unlearn, something I'll never want to forget. He's trying so hard, his brow furrowed in concentration as he forces himself to teeter on the edge, it's almost painful watching him hold back.

"Let go, Elio," I kiss his lips and grind my hips, meeting his thrusts as my hand caresses his cheek tenderly. He does as I ask and loses himself above me, what a sight to behold: the way his whole body convulses and he loses the strength to hold his head up, dropping it down, his thrusts becoming sloppy and delightfully erratic as his orgasm rolls through him. I follow not long after with him still inside me, his slow pumps thoroughly lubricated, feeling divinely wet as he pushes his come around inside me, hitting just the right spot each time.

I swear I hear him mutter an almost inaudible, "thank you," as he comes down from his high, pulling out of me, I choose to ignore it and pull him down to hug me. He collapses on my wet chest, my legs slide down from around his hips, pining the back of his calves into the mattress as I wrap my arms around his back. He snuggles, sweaty and sated under my chin.

"Was that alright?" He asks.

"Perfect."

"I thought so, too."

*

That morning at breakfast Elio leans across to crack open my egg, the shell chipping so easily under his gentle tapping I can't help but see the similarities between us: the way he used barely any force to crack through my rib cage and see my heart, to see me. I glance at him for a second, acknowledging his gesture. If I was to stare at him or even say thank you it would become all too obvious how deep my affection reaches and how his simple assistance speaks such volumes.

Is this what lovers do? Do they hide behind shy gazes and use mundane gestures to express the monumental depth of their feelings?

Does this make us lovers, or are we something more? Does _this_ have a name, a label, a box to tick on a census form, or is it something entirely foreign to anyone who has not experienced it. Maybe no one has ever experienced this and maybe that's the way I would like it to stay.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I couldn’t help myself, so here we go again. I’m picking up right at the very end of the novel, there are a few moments of canonical dialogue before I take over and write about what I think might have happened during Oliver’s short visit to B twenty years since their summer together.

The house stands precisely where it had the last time I visited, 11 years ago. The trees haven't moved, just grown. My Heaven is still just a few metres away. The orchard is in bloom – even without Anchise's tender care – like it had been that summer The sound of the ocean crashing on the shore still rises up the hill and the rock I'd spent hours sitting on was waiting for me to return to contemplate - like I had two decades ago - where it was that this life was leading me. Everything was unchanged. Except Elio. He stands in front of me, taller, older, stronger, more of a man than he was; maybe more of a man than I'll ever be. However, he isn't the Elio I'd known and I'm not the same Oliver and yet here we stand, nostalgia running through our veins as we subtly slip in small details of a vivid 6 week pilgrimage that surely should have faded by now, but hadn't, and probably never will. The past pours over us like acid rain, it melts the years away and smooths out the lines that age carved into our skin.

We're laughing about San Giacomo and how it's "to-die-for" and we're remembering how he'd told me that, as well as offered to take me to the belfry on the very first day our lives touched.

We start to head to the driveway when I say, "I'm like you, I remember everything," because I can't hold it in, because I want him to know, because we'd burnt out a long time ago and there was nothing left to do but release the ashes to the sea breeze.

We stop walking, Elio is in his head, like he often used to be. He's still rummaging around in there when I open my mouth to speak again. "You have a ghost spot too."

He doesn't say anything, obviously not understanding how I could possibly have a place of my own where only his memory resides. He may even find it offensive that I would use a term that is so sacred to him and his family. His expression is blank and I don't take my eyes off him as I lift up the side of my shirt, revealing my sun-spotted, pale skin. I spread my hand over my hip and for the briefest moment I can almost feel the rough, tight, scabbing skin.

I remove my hand but keep holding up my shirt and he continues to stares at my hip. I watch the realisation dawn on his face, like the ocean, it crashes upon him and his brows un-furrow as the memory of torn skin reappears – a phantom scar like a ghost spot – something that faded weeks after I left him. It was healing skin that only Elio kissed, a part of me that was only ever his and never anyone else's. His hand moves away from his side as if the temptation to reach out and touch me is entirely subconscious until the moment he realises he was doing it, which is when he immediately drops his arm.

I want to point to my heart and tell him that: "of course this is your ghost spot as well", but I don't think he needs me to speak such an obvious truth and I am not ready to bear the consequences of voicing such a confession.

He gives me an odd look, then smiles and leads me to the car. I guess we're too old for bikes. 

*

We look out over the town from the belfry, and like he promised the view is "to-die-for".

As much as we wish for it not to be true there is heaviness between us that acts like a paperweight, holding us down, restricting us from throwing caution to the wind. We pretend like we're just old friends catching up, touching on all the mundane topics: family, work, friends, books, music, people we've met who sufficiently impacted our lives. We spend at least an hour on the belfry choosing important milestones to relay. He doesn't look at me and I don't look at him because we both know we share the same expression, the same internal monologue running circles through our minds: S _top. Stop talking about everything I missed. What good is this doing? It hurts and I don't care. Okay, I do care, but I wish I didn't. I do not want to know how you survived without me. Please, just stop..._  But what else is there to do? This is all we have otherwise there would be only silence. This time dying might be better than speaking, because the truth can and always has had the power to initiate the countdown that would demolish the lives we've built.

We are still talking about the people we've met when he turns to me and says something that both stings but breaks the vapidity of our conversation, finally providing the honesty we'd been neglecting: "Sometimes I convinced myself that other people were more important to me than you; that you were mercury and I was on a voyage to Pluto."

A long silence passes before I respond. "When did you realise that you were the sun?" He seems taken aback by my question and it takes him a few moments to absorb what I'd inferred: that Mercury is and always will be the closest thing to the sun. His light may reach across the solar system but no one would ever be closer to him than I, and when the time comes for him to die he'll expand and I'll be the first thing he takes with him. Maybe it's too presumptuous to assume I mean so much to him but maybe he can accept that I'm also telling him he's still my sun. His lip quivers ever-so-slightly and he shakes his head as if in disbelief before scoffing with a half-smile and turning back to the view. 

*

We spend majority of the afternoon together, in fact we rarely spend a moment apart, but refuse to acknowledge just how much we cling to each other.  We end up riding our bikes into town so he can show me how little it's changed, he doesn't mention it but I know it's a conscious decision to have us ride home past Monet's Berm. We eat our lunch side by side, like we used to (keeping our feet to ourselves). We swim together in the pool and after that he sits close by, reading, while I lay in Heaven for a while. I swallow the returning tightness in my throat. We could have easily been mistaken for the two young men we once were. What makes it harder is how I can almost smell the pungent aroma of upturned earth after Anchise would rip up his despised weeds, and I can almost hear Virmini's voice, see her pale face and her eyes that shone like she knew every one of your secrets but had no desire to tell anyone expect you. 

"Are you asleep?" I ask because the silence is starting to hurt and I don't like the trail my mind is leading me down because soon I'll start remembering the way his body worshipped mine and mine his.

I watch him turn the page of his novel, "I was." 

I decide maybe some space would be for the best. "Well I'm going to go inside; my back isn't cut out for concrete."

Elio shrugs he’s thoroughly absorbed by his novel. I make my way slowly into the house, up the staircase and into Elio's room; I push the door carelessly so it will shut behind me. An odd feeling washes over me when I realise it hadn't clicked shut. I turn around to see Elio standing under the door frame, his palm holding the door open, his cheeks slightly flushed as if he'd rushed after me.

"Can you do me a favour?" and just like that all the years collapse down upon me and like a sucker punch to the gut I'm breathless. I've seen this exact expression before: he'd ridden into town the morning after we slept together to tell me he wanted to be with me, only to be overcome with instant regret, uncertainty and unease.

"Depends..." I say with an air of casual disregard even though I can feel my pulse beating in my neck. He steps over the threshold. I do not move, holding my ground, but he doesn't approach me, he makes a bee-line for his closet. Squatting down he rummages around in the deepest corner, pushing and moving his belongings until he finds what he's searching for: a plastic laundry bag. He opens it and pulls out a half-buttoned blue shirt. I take a step towards him when he stands. 

He doesn't say anything just gently passes the old shirt into the hand I'd offered out to him. He's gone as quickly as he arrived and it takes a moment for me to realise I'm still staring at the closed wooden door.

I take off my shirt and slip into the soft cotton; it feels like arriving and leaving wrapped in one. Had he slept with it? Snuggled up to it when he missed me? Put his head inside it, or worn it like he had with my bathing suit? 

For him I will not remove it, I'll wear it all day, all night and all morning until I'm forced to pass custodianship back to him. I don't overthink my decision because it could tarnish everything. Like the postcard I had taken from this very room, he has owned his shirt longer than I had; it's more his than mine and yet I know he will always consider it mine and that's why he has kept it after all this time. I lay down on his bed, folding my arms, pressing it tightly against my skin, letting the warm afternoon sun soothe me into a heavy dose.

*

I wake from my stupor in the early evening. 

Elio is no-where to be found so I endeavour to find Mrs P.. She's sitting in her husband's old study that has since transformed into a library. We had done majority of our catching up during lunch but she pats the space beside her, smiling brightly. 

" _La muvi star_ ," she mutters quietly to herself as I sit next to her, she brushes back my hair as if I'm her son - it touches me. "Haven't aged a day since you left," she compliments, her tender caress ending too soon.

"Neither have you, Mrs P.," she blushes, shaking her head. "Thanks again for letting me stay the night; it's made this trip a lot easier."

"We'd never turn you away. We're glad to see you again."

"I'm glad to be back, it's almost as though nothing has changed."

"Yes, almost..." When I think about it a great deal has changed, and it was insensitive, borderline disrespectful to diminish the losses she has suffered. I can't meet her eye, a little more embarrassed than I care to hide. "Sometimes, without warning, everything can change and it's so sudden you might not be able to take it all in at first," I have a distinct feeling we're not just talking about the passing of her husband, but I can't seem to distinguish exactly what she's inferring. I'm grateful when she speaks again, saving me the inner turmoil of thinking of a response. "Eventually we adjust to the new rhythm, even if it always feels a few beats are out of sync."

"And on the hard days at least we have the memories of how the melody used to sound."

" _Precisamente._ " Precisely.

My attention is directed to the door as it's pushed open. Elio is obviously surprised to find the two of us in the room but waves his hand at us dismissively, "Don't mind me." He heads directly to the bookcase on the far side of the room and slips the novel he had been reading that afternoon back on the shelf. An overwhelming sensation hits me when I realise where it was he'd vanished to: Monet's Berm. His place to read, to escape the world,  _to escape me_  I wonder. I try my best to unravel the coil of disappointment before it tightens itself around my gut. D _on't dwell on the fact he didn't ask for company, as much as you would have wanted to say yes, you would have said no._  

I almost didn't notice how Mrs P. immediately stood upon her son's entrance but I catch a glimpse of her as she leaves the room, closing the door behind her. Elio doesn't move, unsure what he should do next. I quietly walk over and stand beside him, scanning the shelves before choosing the first book my eye is drawn to,  _Se L'Amore,_ I open the collection and it falls to reveal the only dog-eared page. I know he's staring, that he's taking in my torso and the curve of my body in Billowy; surely he never thought this was a sight he would see again.  

"I haven't read it-" he begins,  _it_ , of course, referring to 'The San Clemente Syndrome' "-since I was living in America. It made me homesick then, it reminded me of Rome, of this house, of you," he takes the book from my hands, scanning the words. 

Suddenly he starts to read the poem to me and I'm transported back to the stuffy, sweltering bookshop in Rome and I'm watching the old us, like a voyeur or an omniscient third party, observing two people who were shamelessly enamoured with each other to the point they couldn't keep their hands to themselves.

Hearing Elio speak the words tells me why I also never revisited this poem either. There is an uncanny, almost uncomfortable resemblance between the layers of San Clemente and the relationship Elio and I share. There doesn't seem to be an end to  _us._ If we were to start digging through all the layers and lives we created since that summer we would still manage to find each other in the ruins of every single one.

He passes the book back to me and I place it back on the shelf.

We stare at the books in front of us but neither of us are reading their spines, we have committed ourselves to silently absorbing the feeling of having the other person so near. He stands so close to me that I can almost feel the rise and fall of his chest, every so often he takes deep, stabilising breaths and they make me do the same. I don’t know why I do it but I let myself sway gently into him, knocking his shoulder with mine, it's so subtle that he could interpret it as an accident if he so wishes, but after a single, long sigh he returns the bump and suddenly we're like opposite ends of a Newton's cradle that miraculously manage to touch. I don't notice how both our breathing patterns shallow considerably it's as if we're on alert, anticipating something, waiting subconsciously for one of us to do more than knock the other's shoulder. I'm also so focused on our momentum that I'm not fully aware of the way my skin prickles with the beginnings of desire and how a delicate heat starts to warm me from the inside out. How on earth this simple little game could suddenly become so sensual would eventually flaw me, but as of now I'm still unaware - maybe I would have stopped sooner if I'd realised just how easily my not-so-suppressed desperation to touch him could arise. It isn't until the sound of footsteps right outside the door captures all my attention that I finally break the momentum. I immediately grip his shoulder to stop him from stumbling. He rights himself so I let him go. He brushes his hand through his hair and sighs quietly. Whoever it was passes by the room and does not enter. 

"So?" his voice may be thick with lust, frustration, unease and disappointment but he is not asking "what was that?", nor is he asking "what now?", he is simply breaking the silence with an invitation for me begin a conversation of my choosing.

"So," I repeat because my mind is still too foggy and he’s always been better at speaking. I walk back over to the couch; he hesitates for a moment before sitting beside me.

"Mum often asks about you; she thinks we keep in contact more than we actually do."

I don't know how to respond, an apology for my silence would expose that I feel remorse for the lost years, but saying nothing could infer that I wanted the space. "What do you tell her when she asks?"

"That I'm sure you're doing well, which she loves to hear because you were always one of her favourites."

"What about her son, was I one of his favourites?" Perhaps it's cruel to ask such a question and I'm not sure exactly why I put him in the position to answer.

Elio narrows his eyes, unimpressed by my cunning. He slouches into a relaxed position,  "Nah, I heard he couldn't wait to be rid of you."

I suck my teeth, cross my arms and squint back at him with amused suspicion. "Well next time you see him let him know I couldn't wait to leave."

"Will do," his neutral expression does not falter. He's putting me in my place, telling me not to assume I was the only one that mattered to him, reminding me that he'd loved since me and that he has people in his life that he can't live without.

There is a loud knock on the door, "Dinner," Mrs P. calls.

*

Late that night, after the house has fallen silent, I sneak down to my old rock, it has shrunk, eroded by years of the ocean's faithful tide and I suppose I'd grown too. 

The brutally bitter relentlessness of nostalgia returns harder than it had before. The burden presses on me until every one of my bones ache. The life that was meant for me, the one I'd kissed goodbye to in an airport toilet cubical, unravels around me. It bursts open like dying supernovae, erupting into numerous nebulae, smearing a kaleidoscope of colour across every inch of my being, across the ocean and the dark sky and I'm sure if I look behind me the villa would be bathed in the same imaginary light.  _Oh what a life it could have been._ I would have gladly waited for summer to come each year if I'd been waiting with him. I don't realise tears have welled in my eyes until I hear Elio clear his throat from behind me. The magnificent light in front of my eyes fades and darkness returns.

I wish it didn't have to be this way, pretending like we no longer know what the other is thinking. Surely speaking after all this time would be useless. We've spent so long apart we really can't be what the other needs, even though I know we never truly stopped being what the other wants – that has been proven time and time again today. Whatever we were back then – I never did think of a label – we just left it, suspended in time, without finality, like a family member in a waiting room, holding out hope for a loved one who'll forever be in surgery; or like a mother who received a telegraph in war time, she knew without a shadow of a doubt what lay inside the envelop: notice of her son's death, but if she didn't read it maybe that would mean it wasn't true. Permanent procrastination. My refusal to say "Italy is in the past; Elio is in the past" wasn't any different. How could it possibly be considered the past when I still carry it with me: when it sits "in silence" on a bookshelf or lies hidden on the opposite side of a postcard. Or is folded half way across the world and stuffed in a plastic bag. Remnants of a life unfinished, like uncovering the antechamber before the tomb, you think you've found a fortune only to later discover treasures beyond comprehension and the final resting place of a deity. I turn to face him and just like that the light returns, because he carries it with him and I'd been ignoring it all day. In fact I'd been speaking the truth all day as well and he'd heard me every single time. Maybe we never stopped being what the other needs after all...

"Oliver," I greet casually.

"Elio," he breathes as if he'd been desperately waiting for me to call him by my name for hours, maybe even years. He sits down beside me, dropping his feet into the ocean next to mine.

"Time has always been against us," I observe because what else is there to say when it's obvious I'm tracking the path of the moon.

His foot slips between mine and as if on cue the breeze returns the ashes of our burnt souls and like a phoenix they rise to burn inside us again. "We can't," I remind him without an ounce of conviction in my voice.

"I know but you'll kill me if you stop." I turn to face him, I can't discern where we should go from here and if I speak on impulse I might just confess that I never wanted to stop.

He glances in my direction, a hidden challenge lying in his slightly raised eyebrow, we turn back to stare out across the seemingly endless expanse of the ocean - it could go on forever and we would never know unless we unmoored a boat and sailed out to see. "I don't want to kill you." 

He's smiling, I can feel it crack the tension between us, "That's reassuring."

The heaviness returns with the silence and not even the soft caresses of our toes soothes us. It isn't enough. Perhaps nothing would ever be enough to convey how much we wished we could wake up tomorrow and be twenty years younger with another six weeks together, then another, then another... 

"I could go years without thinking about you," my intention is not to hurt him, not to build an image of someone who can move on but to tell him that he always managed to seep back in and he nods because he understands, maybe he even managed to do the same. "I thought I could forget you."

"Did you want to?"

"Did you?" I counter rhetorically it's obvious we both share the same answer. "I thought it would make it easier," I admit.

"It never got easier, not really."

"No, it didn't."

"Do you ever wonder-"

I cut him off because I cannot bear to hear the words and because I already know my answer, "Too often." Not 'yes', not 'sometimes', but  _too often._ I wondered about  _us_ – about where and who we would be by now if we hadn't parted – too many times, more often than I care to admit, maybe more often than I should, all things considered. 

Elio holds his hand out for me. He has always been brave, brazen even, it was unnerving then and it still is now, but that doesn't stop me from slipping my fingers between his. The feeling of holding him is indescribable. Even the unabashed joy I felt when I hugged him that autumnal afternoon five years ago was minuscule compared to  _this._ Theprolonged, lingering, carefree contact that seemed like it could last a lifetime. The phoenix inside me flaps his wings fanning the fire until it engulfs me. I swear I'm burning. I’m glowing like a beacon, a fixed lighthouse beam warning ships of the proximity of land. 

I can't hold back any longer, so I give in. I let myself indulge in him by resting my head on his broad shoulder. What a sight we would have been: two middle-aged men, legs intertwined, fingers linked, heads resting against each other's.

"You'll come back, won't you?" his voice catches and I squeeze my eyes shut because I know what he's truly asking:  _You'll come back for me, won't you, Oliver? Tell me you will. You might have a parallel life but mine really has been a coma since you left and I need you to revive me._  

I'd known it all along, that I'd find my way back to this life, that we would return to each other one day - we'd found the antechamber back then and we're yet to discover the tomb.

"Later," I promise. He laughs and keeps laughing until it’s obvious he’s sobbing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a tendency to write a fic with the intention of it being a one-shot only to be drawn right back in and write more a few weeks later. So, that being said, I hope you enjoyed this extra instalment. I have no immediate plans to continue this fic but who knows I might just change my mind.  
> I may or may not have had tears in my eyes while writing a couple of these moments, maybe it was the playlist I listened to, maybe it just hurt to write, but it's most likely because they break my heart and I didn't do myself any favours by extending the pain. They "wasted so many [years]" but "love is love is love" (- Armie Hammer) after all.


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